Snowbird's play from the right

After an aborted run for the presidency and a Senate Republican primary loss in 2002, Bob Smith said he had no intention of returning to the political arena. He left New Hampshire for Florida, spent time working for a foundation devoted to the Everglades, took a spot on the board of directors of a bank and tried his hand at selling real estate.

But the call of the ballot box proved irresistible, and Smith suddenly finds himself plotting a comeback.

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With a feisty YouTube video recorded at his Sarasota home, Smith launched a bid this week for the Republican 2010 Senate nomination that will pit him against two of the biggest names in state politics — Gov. Charlie Christ and state House Speaker Marco Rubio. In the video, he pitched his candidacy to Floridians who are “sick and tired of what’s happening to our party moving to the left and our country being taken over, our private sector being taken over by the government.”

It is, he concedes, an uphill battle.

Crist is a popular governor who is far ahead in the polls. Smith has almost no name recognition in his adopted state and, compared with his competitors, his campaign war chest looks more like a piggy bank. He drives himself to events, his wife helps with scheduling and volunteers using a hand-held camera shoot videos in his home office, which he then posts on YouTube so viewers can see his position on everything from Second Amendment rights to federal bailouts of banks and insurance companies.

It’s a long way from the United States Senate, where he served two terms, from 1990 to 2003.

“When I saw what happened in the last election, I realized the Republican Party is in grave danger,” Smith said. “I just can’t sit on the sidelines and watch this happen. I want to be able to face my own grandchildren and say, ‘Hey, look, I tried.’”

Smith is betting that the conservative credentials he earned in the Senate and in his three terms in the House will set him apart from his better-known and better-financed rivals.

In an interview with POLITICO, Smith described Crist’s politics as “way, way to the left of me.” Among the honors he lists on his campaign website, one stands out: “Ranked in the top 5 percent of the House and Senate as one of the most conservative members on social, economic and military issues.”

Smith said he is beginning to fill his calendar with events in places like Tampa, Miami and Boca Raton, and he has been fielding phone calls and e-mails— he tries to respond to all of them personally — from people curious about his candidacy and a few who are skeptical.

Whether Smith can make inroads among the state’s conservative voters — many of whom are already favorably inclined toward Rubio— may hinge on his own complicated relationship with the Republican Party.

He quit the GOP in 1999 to run for president as an independent, upbraiding his fellow Republicans in a speech on the Senate floor for abandoning their core principles. But months later, he dropped out of the presidential race, rejoined the party and threw his support behind George W. Bush. Then, four years later, he reversed that endorsement and thumbed his nose at Republicans once again by supporting Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over Bush in the 2004 presidential contest.

The 1999 party switch played a role in his 2002 primary defeat, as did some uncharacteristic votes on environmental issues, since they raised questions about his party loyalty. And his otherwise strongly conservative voting record was not viewed as a general election asset in a state that was moving in the other direction.

As the 2002 election loomed, some state and national Republicans worried that Smith would not be competitive against then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who was expected to be the Democratic candidate for Senate, and they instead pushed the candidacy of then-Rep. John Sununu, the son of a former governor and White House chief of staff to George H.W. Bush.

“Bob Smith was very much a fundamental conservative Republican in a state that was trending away from that,” said Kathy Sullivan, the former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “When Bob left the Republican Party, the party pooh-bahs were basically chomping at the bit to get Sununu into that race.”